10 gal - 3 otocinclus and 5 white cloud too many?

[dud]

I have a 10g tank, lightly planted, and I am cycling it right now with 1 white cloud and 2 neons. I'm thinking of having some oto and white clouds and neonsl eventually, but read that they are all schooling fish, so keep at least 3 for oto and at least 5 white clouds and neons. So I forgot about neons and will keep to otos and white clouds, but still I'm wondering if this is too much bioload and too big a crowd for my tank. This is also because of the articles suggesting no more than 2 otos per 10g or so...

Any suggestions?

 

[LittlePuff]

That sounds fine to me.

Kim

 

[TankGirl]

What you suggest sounds fine. The only comment I have is to wait until the tank is mature for the otocinclus, as they need pretty stable conditions. A good crop of diatoms will help a lot as well.

 

[dud]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[rubysoho]

make sure you supply the otos with algea wafers at night since there will probably not be enough algea for them to eat.

 

[verucaproduce]

If your otos won't eat the algae wafers (like mine) then you can feed them blanched cucumber and zucchini too. Mine seem to love it.

 

[dud]

great! Zucchini is also one of my favorite. We never run out of zucchini, so that's good.

BTW, Tankgirl, any idea on keeping a good crop of diatom (but still under control)?

 

[TankGirl]

No, I don't have the art of maintaining diatoms perfected, though it is a pretty regular visitor to my lower light tanks that have no plants. It almost always shows up in newer tanks, so that is generally when people wind up getting otocinclus - they want to know how to get rid of the brown stuff, and they learn that otocinclus love it. It's after the diatoms are gone that you really have to take care to feed them after lights out.